Poole, Reginald S.: The cities of Egypt (London, 1882)

ALEXANDRIA.

183

foundation of the Library and the Museum. But the
magnificence of the capital was due to his son, the
wealthiest of ancient kings, Ptolemy, surnamed Philadel-
phus. During a long and peaceful reign he and his
consort, the second Arsinoe, laboured to fill the city with
noble edifices and with the science and learning of Greece.
The Museum was crowded with teachers and students,
the Library with eager readers, the streets were thronged
with the crowds of traffickers, and with the idlers who
flocked to the great pageants of the king and the scenes
of the theatre. The picture of a royal pomp, as given by
Callixenus with heraldic precision, that of the life of the
rich ladies, as drawn by Theocritus with poetic liveliness,
are not so striking as the little story how the rich and
luxurious king looked from his palace-window, and as he
saw the naked children sporting on the sand, cried
' Would that I were one of them !' It is the old sum-
ming up of Solomon,— ' Vanity of vanities, all is vanity !'

The successor of Philadelphus, Ptolemy surnamed
Euergetes, the Benefactor, is the first king who while still
a Greek began to be an Egyptian also. A quarrel with
the Syrian ruler, for the sake of his sister, murdered by
a rival queen, led Euergetes to make war on his eastern